Tractors and wood! Show your pics

   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,901  
I plan to start turning these logs into lumber real soon. I'll find out if ants are the reason. I'm hoping for about 300 bdft to build a shelving unit next year
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,902  
They're a huge amount of fun. There's one they call "Rough and Tumble" near Lancaster PA. Big turn out for the steam tractors, plus there are a number of running "hit and Miss" engines running pumps, log saws, corn shucker's, etc. Plus old vintage combustion engine tractors.

At Noon all the steam tractors blow their steam whistles...dozens of huge tractors with locomotive whistles...it's cover your ears deafening and lasts for 2 or 3 minutes!!
I remember going to that event, or another like it in Lancaster, as a kid with my father. Lots of enormous old steam tractors, stationary power plants, hit and miss engines, etc.

There was a really cool small stationary water-cooled engine, in which the radiator was an open cone of steel window screen material in an inverted funnel configuration. Water would pour onto the top of this screen and then float down the outside of it, held by surface tension, to cool, before landing in a pan containing the water pump sump.

Anyway, I'm standing there totally mesmerized with this water cascading down this screen, probably around age 10, and decided to touch it. Now, I was (or should have been) smart enough to know even at that age that engine cooling water is going to be awful hot, but I guess I just hadn't thought it through prior to sticking my finger into it. Damn!
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,903  
Don’t know about your area but if a red oak is standing dead in the forest around New England, it’s mostly about carpenter ants.
When processing firewood from these trees, I always have a can of bug spray or even brake cleaner to kill the multitude of nests l find lurking in these stems.
We often find oaks hollowed out and full of carpenter ants, as well. I don't think the carpenter ants are doing the damage, I think they're just opportunists who move in, after the decay has already taken hold.

I used to carry a small pump sprayer, one-hand job the size of a 1 gallon milk jug with a fixed nozzle instead of the usual hose and wand, and keep it loaded with ant spray for when I'd cut into a round that was loaded with ants. But in recent years I've taken to just splitting them open and leaving them lay out in the processing area, for the birds to do their thing. Didn't want the stuff I was spraying on the ants to kill some hungry birds.
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,904  
2520 was on tree duty yesterday. Used to pull over a large dead tree in the pasture that was too close to the fence line for comfort. Tree was tied off to a D-ring on the carryall receiver hitch. Would appreciate tree identification if anyone has ideas. Best I can come up with is ash.

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   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,905  
Runner - I can’t see enough in those pictures to tell, especially when viewing on my phone.

One thing to check: Ash has opposite branching (two branches sprout off opposite sides of the stem). Maple and dogwood share this trait. If it has alternate branching (a left handed branch, then move up the stem a bit before you get to a right-hand branch), then it is not an Ash.
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,906  
When I see the bark falling off in chunks like that I think Elm. I’m not sure though.
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,907  
If you aren’t sure between Ash and Elm, just try to hand split some firewood. That will tell you in an instant: if it splits in two if you look at it too hard, it’s Ash. If it’s a pain to split even with a hydraulic splitter, it’s Elm.
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,908  
Runner - I can’t see enough in those pictures to tell, especially when viewing on my phone.

One thing to check: Ash has opposite branching (two branches sprout off opposite sides of the stem). Maple and dogwood share this trait. If it has alternate branching (a left handed branch, then move up the stem a bit before you get to a right-hand branch), then it is not an Ash.
Thanks. There is another dead one about 50 feet from this one that I will be taking down in the near future, so will try your method.
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,909  
If you aren’t sure between Ash and Elm, just try to hand split some firewood. That will tell you in an instant: if it splits in two if you look at it too hard, it’s Ash. If it’s a pain to split even with a hydraulic splitter, it’s Elm.
Good point. Now that you mention it, I have some ash in the pile that I split (by hand) several years ago (and yes, it was a BIG pain, very stringy and tough). I will try to split some and also compare the bark.

Will try to get a piccy of its twin before I take it down also.
 
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   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #23,910  
Good point. Now that you mention it, I have some ash in the pile that I split (by hand) several years ago (and yes, it was a BIG pain, very stringy and tough). I will try to slit some and also compare the bark.

Will try to get a piccy of its twin before I take it down also.
If it was “very stringy and tough”, it was probably not Ash.

If a hydraulic splitter is one of those that reaches the end of its stroke with the wedge still an inch or two from the anvil/plate, you’ll find Elm still hanging on and often taking quite a bit of effort to separate that last bit.

Unless it’s very knotty, Ash will split very easily, often popping apart before the wedge gets even halfway through
 
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